|
 My
career has really been focused on various combinations of Technology,
Business, and Learning. Sometimes it's just one or two, but to I've
been involved in all of them to some extent for almost 20
years.
Outside of work, I enjoy
music, food, and travel. Music has always been a big part of my
life. I've played piano for over 30 years with formal lessons for
about 14 of those. I've written, recorded, and performed my own
music and have played in several bands. I really enjoy going to live
concerts, especially in smaller venues. After high school, I didn't
really know much about food, but I learned quickly. Experiments in
the kitchen are a lot of fun. It's even more fun to try those
experiments on my friends when they come over for dinner. Travel is such a great hobby because it allows me to
combine many of my other favorite things like food, wine, and
reading into one thing. Travel is a great way to experience
the things that most people only read about. The worlds come
alive in ways that words just can't describe.
Anyway a sampling of my bio
is below. For more information on my career, please check out my resume.
My Bio...
| The
Early Years |
| 1969
- 1987 |
I grew up in Sterling
Heights, Michigan about 8 miles north of the border of the city
of Detroit (which you all now know as 8 Mile thanks to Eminem).
That places me at 16 Mile (Detroit's navigation is easy that
way).  My
dad worked at Chrysler's Mound Round Engine plant for most of that
time, though during the '80/'81 bankruptcy he worked for Fairchild
working on mining equipment in West Virginia. I graduated
as Valedictorian from Bethany
Christian School in 1987. Bethany is a small private school that
is part of the First
Baptist Church in Troy,
MI. They are independent fundamentalists (if you know what that
means). It was an o.k. education, but in the last several years they've
become more and more extreme. One version of my site had a pretty
good rant about it. If I ever find it, I'll post it to the
blog. In any case, it's very different now then it was then. |
Car: 1982 Dodge
Omni
Home: Sterling
Heights
|
| Undergrad
and Beyond |
| 1987
- 1996 |
 Anyway,
less than two months after graduation, I started college at GMI
Engineering and Management Institute (formerly General Motors
Institute, now known as Kettering University) in not-quite-so-beautiful
Flint, MI.
All of the students rotate between school and their sponsoring company
on a quarterly basis. Those quarterly changes made me pretty mobile
for almost that entire time as can be seen from all of the places I
lived. I spent 9 years (5 as a co-op student) in the
MIS (computer) department at William
Beaumont Hospital based in Royal
Oak, MI.
 My
very first task was to assemble Data General PCs (yes, they made PCs
at one time). They weren't the best quality and even had
jumper wires running from circuit boards to the motherboard.
My first programming project was a random number generator for the
financial department to audit checks written in Basic. It was
a great experience, a very good place to learn, and a great place to
grow up. I worked on a variety of projects over the years,
including PC support, Operations, Elevator Studies, Staffing
Studies, etc. However, my two largest were for the Physician Referral Service and Cardiology.
Those are still two of my favorite projects ever. We did some
really innovative, cool solutions for the departments. One of
my very last tasks before I left was to demonstrate this thing
called the Internet. At that point Yahoo was still the leader,
was a straight up manually created directory, and you could still
surf the entire public web if you wanted to.
While at GMI, I joined the social fraternity, Beta
Theta Pi. After college, I spent several years working with undergraduate
Betas as House Advisor and, later, District Chief. I graduated from
GMI-EMI with my Bachelors of Science in Management in 1992.
|
Cars:
1988 Dodge
Shadow
1992 Dodge Shadow
1996 Dodge Stratus
Homes:
Flint
Utica
Fenton
Birmingham
Troy
Farmington Hills
Warren (my first house)
|
| The
Transition |
| 1996
- 2000 |
 During
high school, I had set the goal to get my MBA. In 1996, I joined Valassis
in part because of their full tuition reimbursement at the time. During
my four years, I was a Sr. Business Analyst in the MIS (computer)
department. Valassis, consistently one of Fortune
magazine's "Top
100 Companies to Work For", is a Livonia,
MI-based marketing services company. Most people are familiar
with the company's coupons that come in the Sunday paper (in which
they maintain about 50% U.S. market share), the pizza box coupons,
the product samples that come in the newspaper or in the newspaper
bag, and the various games of chance like McDonald's Monopoly game,
or the TriCon (Pizza Hut, Taco Bell, KFC) promotions. |
Car: 1998 Dodge
Avenger
Homes:
Novi
Plymouth
|
| Recent
History |
| 2000
- Present |
|
 I finished my
Masters of Business Administration (MBA) at the University
of Michigan Business School in Ann Arbor on April 28, 2000.
The U-M Business
School has continually been ranked in the Top 5 business schools
in the nation by all of the leading publications. After 3 1/2 years
of hard work and studying, it felt good to be done. To be honest
though, there is a part of me (a sick, but important part) that
misses it, just a little. Who knows? Maybe I'll go
back to get my PhD someday soon.
 I went through the
recruiting program at the university and was hired by RootLearning®
Inc. Root
is a pretty unique company that helps other companies create business
literacy among their employees using tools that foster self-directed
learning through engaging dialogue and visuals. So what does that
mean? Root creates tools that help people talk about and understand
issues that are important to our client's companies.
While I was there, I worked on projects for Holiday Inn, GM, Pepsi, American
Express, and Blockbuster. After
about 6 months of working with Root's traditional paper products,
I began working on a new venture with their e-Learning solutions
which are now over 6 years old.
In early 2001, I was promoted to Director
of e-Learning. We did a lot of incredibly interesting and
innovative projects from simulations to teasers making use of all
kinds of new technologies. The revenue for the team grew
30-50% per year even as the company grew and eventually became
20-25% of the business. I'm really proud of having been part
of (and in some small way responsible for) such a great team that contains strong expertise
in programming, interface design/usability, animation, audio, and graphic design.
I believe the team creates some of the best and most engaging e-Learning
tools on the market today.
As of about two years ago, I
completed my goal to go to all 50 states. Alaska and Hawaii
were the last two on the list and there are some great pictures from
there on the site. I've traveled to a bunch of countries in
Europe and the Middle East as well. Most recently was France
and Switzerland which was a great trip. This summer I was able
to spend a lot more time traveling the northeast including Vermont,
New Hampshire, Maine, and one of my new favorite North American
cities...Montreal. It was my first time there in the summer
(after 3 times in February). What a difference 5 months makes!
 Early
last year, I left Root to join The
Masie Center's Learning Consortium as Vice President. The
Masie Center is a learning industry association, based in upstate
New York. Root was one of over 250 member organizations who
gather to talk about the industry and determine new directions and
opportunities. It was an incredible time to meet some
incredible people and learn about all varieties of new technologies
that will be impacting our world.
In January of 2007, I decided to
return back to Michigan and step out on my own doing contract work
in Technology, Business, and Learning.
|
Cars:
2001 Jeep
Liberty
2004 Jeep Liberty
Home: Saline
|
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